Personal Attacks

I got on to Nextdoor as a neighborhood lead and reviewed what they called “flagged comments” A number of those comments were considered “disrespectful” and some of them were definite name-calling and insults that we would call personal attacks.

Many people express their anger on social media and it comes in the form of personal attacks. This past week CBN founder Pat Robertson, died at the age of 93, and many people on twitter talked to him as if he was still living and told him to "rot in hell."

Politics is full of personal attacks. Right now is Donald Trump calling his opponent, Ron DeSantis, Ron Sanctimonious.  While playful, Sanctimonious is a synonym for hypocrisy:  Trump is repeatedly mocking DeSantis and calling him a hypocrite as his current joke.

Personal attacks are different from criticism. Good criticism is constructive and about the actual problem, and aims to solve the problem or make things better. Personal attacks are negative comments about someone as a person.   

The tricky part is personal attacks are statements you take personally as hurtful.

Empathy plays a big part in personal attacks in that you may hear a personal attack addressed towards someone else, and you feel hurt or angry for the person attacked. 

Personal attacks are a 50-50 proposition. People with thin skin who take a lot of statements as personal attacks have insecurity and poor ego functioning; that it is not just the words said but the tone of voice used. I have had a lot of coworkers and patients who show this thin skin when their main complaint is “they talked to me like I was a dog” or I was a “piece of ---bleep.”

Some people with thin skin lack the inner resources to handle and tolerate the average stress of everyday life and so they take more and more statements as “personal attacks.”  They live on the left side or emotional side of their brain and they react versus respond to what is said.

Much of the family drama that ruins holidays happens to come from personal attacks.

A toxic workplace is rife with personal attacks. The personal attacks are frequently said behind backs and the gossip drives drama.  Toxic bosses also write gaslighting emails with paragraphs of criticism instead of just trying to solve problems.

We all have been personally attacked or felt like we have been personally attacked.  The reality also includes that we have all personally attacked.

The personal attack that catches off guard is the one that hits a raw nerve.  The tricky part about personal attacks is that it is more about reception than intention.    The late Potter Stewart famous obscenity quote was that he could like describe it but “I know it when I see it.”  We know personal attacks when see them and receive them.  Almost any statement can be construed as a personal attack.

Drawing this back to the mission of this podcast: good mental health, I think that some people have to resolve their pain and anger from prior personal attacks.  Some of the most painful personal attacks are typically made by bosses and others without character in front of an audience because the attacker does not have the guts to simply say something in private to your face. Maybe a therapist can help if anger from past personal attacks is hard to shake. In the here and now, I think that it is possible to develop a philosophy or practice of self-talk to prepare when you feel personally attacked.  I think that taking a breath and having a few scripts prepared for response can be helpful.  The assertiveness literature calls them “gambits” or chess moves.  It further seems to me that since most of us live in the same circle with the same people, we can quickly figure out scripts we can use.

Lastly, I will say that self-talk is important in coping with personal attacks.  I find it helpful to say to myself repeatedly “Do good people with character say things like that.”   It